Salt ban in restaurant foods might not be worth its salt

Salt seems like an inalienable right, as all-American as the French fries, popcorn and huevos rancheros we dump it on

March 12, 2010|By Mary Schmich

When New Yorkers start talking about banning something popular – think trans fats or metal bats – there's a good chance at least a few Chicagoans will hop on the ban wagon.

So we shouldn't be surprised if, one day soon, some Chicago alderman is inspired to copy the Brooklyn assemblyman who just proposed a law forbidding New York restaurants from preparing foods with salt.

You may be thinking: Food without salt? Is that even possible? Isn't that like the sky without air? Chicago without potholes?

Salt seems like an inalienable right, as all-American as the French fries, popcorn and huevos rancheros we dump it on.

But, for as absurd as a salt ban sounds, too much salt can be bad for you, and I couldn't help but wonder: What would Ina think?

Ina Pinkney runs Ina's, a popular restaurant on Chicago's Near West Side. She's a campaigner for healthier restaurant food, and she got noticed nationally when she crusaded against trans fats in New York and Chicago.

Her verdict on restaurant salt bans?

"Unenforceable," she said when I called her at her restaurant Tuesday.

Pinkney agrees that a lot of us eat too much salt when we eat out, but argues that restaurants that actually cook actual food aren't the culprit.

"The people who manufacture food, they are the ones who need to clean up the ingredients list," she said, "not restaurants where they really make food."

By food manufacturers — is "food manufacturers" an oxymoron? — she means the people who supply chain restaurants with a lot of the stuff a lot of people love.

Look up the sodium count in those things, she suggested, and the shock alone could kill you.

Pinkney herself doesn't care much for salt.

"I'm a sweet, creamy girl, not a salty, crunchy girl," she said.

At Ina's, food is deliberately under-salted.

For diners who want more punch, every table is equipped with a unique pair of salt-and-pepper shakers.

"But I know when salt makes a difference," she said. "You won't get me to eat Cheetos, but when I'm making a soup or stew I know when a tablespoon of kosher salt will enhance. There's a place for salt. It raises the flavor profile. It's why we put a touch of salt in chocolate."

Part of the problem with the salt glut in processed food, she said, is that it has made many people crave even more salt.

"Somehow you need more and more to get the taste," she said, "especially the aging palate."

For the view from a younger palate, she suggested I call Nicole Pederson, executive chef at one of Chicago's hot restaurants, C-House.

"Trans fat is bad in every single way," Pederson said. "But salt is not bad in every single way."

Pederson suggested we focus on salt in schools rather than in restaurants. Get the processed food out of school lunches, create better eating habits in kids and you begin to solve the problem.

For millenniums, salt has seemed as vital to life as money. Slaves have been traded for it, wars fought for it, roads built just to move it around.

It seems unlikely that New York or anywhere will ban this precious commodity in restaurant food. But talking about salt's hazards may do some good.